Parentage: ‘Macane017’ is the result of a controlled cross-pollination breeding program carried out by the inventors at their commercial nursery in Kirkcudbright, Scotland, in 2007. The inventors began by performing a controlled cross-pollination of Anemone rupicola (unnamed and unpatented), the seed parent, with Anemone hupehensis var. japonica ‘Pamina’ (unpatented), the pollen parent. An F1 seedling from said cross was grown to maturity and then pollinated with an unnamed Anemone hupehensis seedling with a dwarf growth habit and a pink double flower, developed by the inventors (unpatented). Said pollination was performed in an insect proof environment. Seed from said cross was harvested, then germinated, and the resulting seedlings were then grown to a mature size in a protected poly tunnel greenhouse. In 2008, the inventors selected the new Anemone cultivar due to its unique flower and bloom characteristics. This new and distinctive cultivar was given the name ‘Macane017’.
Asexual Reproduction: Asexual reproduction of ‘Macane017’ was first accomplished in 2008 by way of root cuttings at the inventor's nursery in Kirkcudbright, Scotland. After several years of experimentation, ‘Macane017’ was also asexually reproduced by way of meristematic tissue culture micro propagation at a plant tissue culture laboratory in the Netherlands. Successive generations produced from both root cuttings and tissue culture have shown that the unique features of the instant cultivar are stable and reproduce true to type.